


Causal Relation

by Suspicious_Popsicle



Series: Trouble in a Black Hoodie [3]
Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluri, M/M, occupation bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 21:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suspicious_Popsicle/pseuds/Suspicious_Popsicle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimer: The characters in this story are from Tales of Vesperia and do not belong to me.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Causal Relation

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters in this story are from Tales of Vesperia and do not belong to me.

Don Whitehorse sat at his ease on the edge of the desk at the front of the classroom and posed a hypothetical situation to his students.

“Let’s say you’ve got a grade-A scumbag, just an absolute villain who, through some means or other, is very well connected. And let’s say that this particular scumbag is a murderer—you know it, I know it, everybody knows it—and he’s arrested. But, because of his connections, what should have been a death sentence after his trial turns into a little slap on the wrist. Has justice been done?”

There were a few murmured ‘No’s and several other students shook their heads. Mr. Whitehorse grinned.

“All right, now say that our scumbag was all set to keep on murdering, only someone stopped him: broke into his house and slit the guy’s throat before he could harm another soul. Has justice been done?”

There was a longer pause. No one spoke, although some people nodded and others shook their heads. Flynn wondered how anyone could call murder justice, no matter how evil the victim.

“What about if our much-less-well-connected vigilante goes on trial and is convicted and sentenced to death? Has justice been done then? Or did he deserve to be acquitted like the murderer he killed?”

About to speak up, Flynn was surprised by the voice that came from the back of the room, near the door.

“Both of them deserved to be punished to the full extent of the law. If the vigilante knew what he was doing was wrong and was prepared to accept the punishment he deserved, then he was acting as an instrument of justice for an impotent government.”

Flynn turned around in his seat to gape at Yuri. He’d never heard him volunteer an opinion in this class before, and couldn’t believe what he was hearing now. Behind him, Mr. Whitehorse spoke up.

“Seems like you’ve got something to say to that, Scifo.”

“Yes, sir.”

He didn’t take his eyes off of Yuri, lounging next to the door, his feet propped up on the empty seat in front of him. He was nestled in his customary black hoodie, a thin smile across his face and his eyes half closed, as if he was about to drift off. He looked far too comfortable for someone who had just advocated murder as an alternative to justice.

“Being prepared to face the consequences doesn’t give anyone a pass to break the law. What the vigilante did wasn’t justice—it was a crime every bit as wrong as the first man’s actions.”

“The action, sure, but intent matters. The vigilante killed to save lives. The scumbag got his jollies off killing—Whitehorse said as much. He was going to kill again.”

“People can’t be punished for crimes they haven’t committed! He shouldn’t have been let off the hook, but that doesn’t make it okay for another citizen to take the law into his own hands. Maybe the brush with the law would have scared the man straight. Maybe he would have tripped on the stairs and broken his neck. It’s impossible to know what he would have done, seeing as someone murdered him.”

Arching a brow, Yuri pulled his feet back and leaned forward until his arms rested on his desk. “’Tripped on the stairs?’ Lame.” He looked past Flynn toward the front of the room. “They’re your characters. Is that what would have happened?”

“This is a hypothetical situation, not a choose your own adventure book. How about if I tell you that the scumbag had a family?”

“Great,” Flynn said, frowning at Yuri. “You see? Murder doesn’t only affect one person.”

“Right, ‘cause I’m sure the bastard’s family would have been all grins and giggles when the bodies started piling up, so long as he was still around.”

“You know what? It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point. The point is that justice wasn’t served, either when he got away with his crimes, or when he was murdered. No matter how well-deserved, a sentence carried out by an individual can never be anything more than petty vengeance.”

“It might not be the pretty ideal of justice you care so much about, but it’s better than nothing for the families of the victims.”

“How can you—”

“All right, that’s enough. Sit down, Scifo.” He hadn’t remembered standing up, but he took his seat, facing front once more as Mr. Whitehorse continued. “I’d like to thank the both of you for demonstrating that events in this world are rarely black and white. There’s a million and one things to be weighed, and humans are fallible creatures, all of us relying on our own moral compass and resolve….”

After class, Flynn hurried to catch up to Yuri in the hallway outside.

“What was that all about?”

“You’re always arguing with Whitehorse. I thought you might like a new partner for your verbal sparring.”

“Oh.” He smiled, relieved. “So you were just playing devil’s advocate.”

Yuri gave him an odd look. “You weren’t playing. Why should I have been?”

“You were _serious_?”

“Yeah.” He stopped when Flynn did, not looking nearly as invested in the discussion as he ought to.

“How can you think that way? The deliberate murder of one person by another is never justified.”

“If you really believe that, then you’re more of an idealist than I thought, which is a little scary. It’s like Whitehorse said: there’s all sorts of shades of gray in what people do and why they do it.”

“But you can’t—”

“Would you quit looking at me like that?” He ducked his head a little, turning away. “I’m not going to kill anybody, I just think that there are cases where a person needs killing.”

“There’s a difference between being brought to justice and being slaughtered.”

“Is this going to be a problem?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t mind arguing with you, but you’re looking at me like I’ve done something wrong, and I haven’t. I’m not going to apologize for not seeing things your way, and I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Sorry, I….”

He hadn’t expected it. He’d thought Yuri had stronger morals than that. Or, he’d hoped that Yuri had stronger morals than that. Really, they still didn’t know each other all that well. It hadn’t been two months ago that Flynn still hadn’t even known Yuri’s first name. Over the past few weeks they’d become friends, but most of the time they had to talk was the hour just after psych statistics and some afternoons after Don Whitehorse’s class. They got along when they weren’t arguing, and Flynn liked Yuri much more than he’d expected to, but they didn’t really know each other.

Yuri watched him sideways as he tried to work through his frustration, and finally asked: “You wanna hit the gym?”

It was their usual destination on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Yuri didn’t have work in the evening. He had brought Flynn along one day as a guest, and Flynn had signed up before leaving. It felt good to have a place to work out again, and even better when he had someone to go with who could stand up to him in the small boxing ring. After moving, he’d been worried that he would get rusty with no one to spar with. Regular bouts with Yuri put an end to that particular concern. They were fairly evenly matched when it came to fighting. Yuri was clever and flexible in his style, while Flynn was patient, with a strong defense and an eye for spotting weaknesses. They’d resolved a couple of petty arguments that way.

Flynn nodded. He’d had papers due in three of his classes this past week. He probably just needed to unwind. The gym would be a good idea.

They changed the subject and headed for the bus stop at the edge of campus. Yuri had a paper due for a literature class and was considering comparing Lucifer’s portrayal in _Paradise Lost_ to a version of the hero’s journey. He was grinning while he talked about it, as if it was all just a big joke, but he had a few solid points to back him up and Flynn wished him luck. As for his own educational hurdles, he had a biology test next week which was barely worth mentioning. Yuri scoffed.

“Bio’s no big deal. Don’t take astronomy.” He grimaced. “If I’d wanted another math class—oh, wait. I didn’t.”

“You picked it thinking it was just astrology, didn’t you?” He laughed. “Why would they offer a class on that nonsense? It’s about as solidly based in reality as the Loch Ness Monster.”

“I hear they’ve got part of one of Nessie’s cousins in the geology lab. Wanna take that together next semester and find out?”

The question startled him a little, being the first mention of their friendship extending past the end of the two classes they currently shared.

“Sure.”

As they walked on, he fell back a step to watch Yuri, glad for the reassurance that theirs wasn’t a friendship of pure convenience. He had grown to enjoy Yuri’s company much quicker than he would have thought. The connection between them had been forged surprisingly quickly, and Flynn was both grateful and a little amazed by that.

Of particular interest and varying degrees of dismay was the fact that he was now absurdly aware of Yuri. He had gone from a nonentity to a very definite presence and that played hell with Flynn’s concentration in class. The phantom feeling of eyes on him set the skin between his shoulder blades itching until he had to turn and see if Yuri was staring at him. He never was, but he would catch Flynn checking sometimes and smirk. When speaking up to voice an opinion, Flynn would catch himself listening for snickers or pointed comments, unlikely as they were. Yuri was quick enough to argue with him outside of class, but something about being slumped behind a desk usually seemed to encourage him to hold his peace. The debate earlier had been unexpected for a number of reasons. Usually during lectures, he put Flynn in mind of a large jungle cat lazily sunning itself and waiting for something interesting to come along.

It bothered Flynn a little that he wanted to be that something interesting.

Flynn was used to being noticed. He didn’t let it go to his head, but he was aware that he was attractive and intelligent and that he stirred interest. He’d dated before, never anything particularly serious or long lasting, but there had been a few people he’d clicked with, sort of in the same way that things had clicked with Yuri. In Yuri’s case, however, that click wasn’t simply matching pieces settling into place. There’d been friction and heat there. With Yuri, something had _sparked_.

Now, Flynn was stuck in a strange limbo. He liked Yuri, that much was certain, but put into context, considered along with the mixed signals he got and the newness of their friendship and the way he still wasn’t entirely sure what sort of person Yuri was, that attraction became a little more difficult to deal with. He let it simmer in the back of his mind and waited. There was too much he was unsure of to act on his feelings, no matter how badly he wanted Yuri to notice him.

Yuri veered sharply onto another path, and Flynn was only momentarily thrown by the change of direction. He was heading now for the building that housed the campus coffee shop, a typical enough detour, but it brought to mind another concern that Flynn had been doing his best not to dwell on. He watched as Yuri jogged down the stairs, catching himself on the banister at the bottom and swinging easily around. The action put Flynn in mind of seedy bars with stages fitted with gleaming metal poles, though he knew that, had it been anyone else, the thought never would have entered his head.

They didn’t talk about his work. Much as he liked Yuri, Flynn wasn’t sure he approved of the idea of him being a stripper. He wasn’t even sure it was any of his business to disapprove, and Yuri was the type to do whatever he wanted and to hell with the naysayers, anyway. So, Flynn didn’t bring it up and Yuri only spoke of it rarely and in the briefest and most vague terms, and they got along.

At the counter, Yuri had already placed his order and he looked expectantly back to Flynn. “You want anything?”

It wasn’t unusual that he would treat but, thinking of the tip money that would buy his drink—Yuri almost always paid in small change, generally the telltale two-dollar bills—Flynn couldn’t bring himself to accept. He waited while the barista whipped up Yuri’s drink and looked away as he paid, thinking that, if he ever did ask Yuri out, he wouldn’t very well be able to keep on ignoring how he earned his living.

Conditional worries and possible concerns were pushed aside once they reached the gym. They worked out their frustrations on exercise equipment and on each other. Flynn won two out of three of their matches in the small ring, and only lost the third because his foot slipped on the mat. Yuri jeered when he contested the loss, and they argued lightly about it as they changed in the locker room after quick showers.

Outside, Yuri shivered in the chill night wind that whipped through the street. He pulled the zipper on his coat all the way up to his throat and started to flip the hood over his head. A touch of his damp hair in its ponytail changed his mind, and he shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

“You want to go get some dinner together?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Yuri stopped in his tracks, frowning at the pavement, then looked up at Flynn. He fixed a crooked smile on his face and brushed his bangs aside. “I meant _together_ together, actually. As in: do you want to go out. With me.” He glanced away and back and added quickly: “For dinner.”

Every question, every hesitation, every objection Flynn had been considering earlier that day rushed to the forefront of his mind in a clamor of ways that it would be a bad idea, ways that it could go wrong…but as he stood there staring at Yuri, seeing the way his eyes flickered away and back again, nervous and hopeful, seeing the pink across his cheeks that might not be just a reaction to the chill in the air, he found that he didn’t much care about possibilities in the face of this immediate, enticing reality.

A strange combination of exhilaration tempered with sudden bashfulness had him grinning like an idiot.

“Yeah. I…I’d like that.”


End file.
